Rome expected to take five years to approve Personal Ordinariate liturgy

Mgr Keith Newton presides at a service marking the first anniversary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham (Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk)

Ordinariate members had hoped for final approval within two years

Members of the personal ordinariate will have to wait up to five years for Rome to approve their liturgical texts definitively, it emerged this week.

It was originally thought that the Vatican would give the texts definitive approval within two or three years.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has already given interim approval to all the ordinariate’s liturgical texts, except for the rite of Mass. These texts include the Calendar, Divine Office, marriage rite and funeral rite.

But the CDF has now asked a commission of scholars to scrutinise the Mass text. The commission held its first meeting last month.

As the texts are provisional rather than definitive, Mgr Keith Newton, the leader of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham is expected to establish their status in a pastoral letter to members of the ordinariate.

Pope Benedict XVI announced the creation of the personal ordinariate in his apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus in November 2009. He said that he had established the new structure for groups of former Anglicans “to maintain the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion within the Catholic Church”.